What a Toronto Small Business Website Costs

Why quotes are all over the place

Ask three Toronto web designers for a quote and you can easily get three numbers that are thousands of dollars apart. Usually they are not pricing the same thing. One quote covers design and build only; another includes hosting, updates and someone to call when the site goes down. Put the totals side by side without checking what is inside them and the cheapest option often ends up costing the most.

So before comparing prices, compare what each quote includes and leaves out.

What drives the build price

• Number of pages. A home page, services, gallery and contact page is a very different job from a site with dozens of pages.
• Features. A contact form is standard. Online booking, payments, or customer accounts add real work.
• Template or custom design. Swapping your text into a theme is quicker than designing around your business, your photos and your customers.
• Languages. Toronto is one of the most multilingual cities anywhere. If you serve customers in two languages, planning for both from day one is cheaper than bolting a second language on later.

What you pay for every year

A website is not a one-time purchase. To keep it online you will pay, every year, for:

• Your domain — the yourbusiness.ca address, renewed annually.
• Hosting and SSL — the server your site lives on, and the padlock (https) in the address bar.
• Maintenance — updating your hours for the holidays, changing a price, swapping a photo. If you can't make those changes yourself, someone has to.

If a quote doesn't mention these, ask: "What will this site cost me in its first full year, after launch?"

Who owns the site?

The question most people forget is ownership. With a managed plan, the agency hosts the site and makes your changes, but the source code usually stays with them. With a full handover you own the code outright — and you also take on hosting, security and updates yourself, or pay another developer to.

Neither is wrong. If nobody on your team wants to deal with servers and updates, managed makes sense. If you have a developer, or expect to move providers, ownership makes sense. Just know which one you are buying.

A note for larger Ontario businesses

If your organization has 50 or more employees in Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires your public website to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA. Smaller businesses aren't required to, but an accessible site is easier for everyone to use — make sure your quote says whether accessibility is considered.

SERVITH pricing, as an example (September 2026)

For reference, here is how SERVITH prices its two plans. These figures are as of the publish date of this post (September 21, 2026), in CAD, with domains billed separately. Prices can change, so check the pricing page for current numbers.

• Managed Website: from C$900 + C$540/year. We build it, host it and keep it running: hosting, SSL, backups and incident cover, plus one change request a month (up to an hour).
• Full Ownership Website: from C$2,250 one-time. The same site, set up on your own infrastructure, with the source code transferred to you. From then on you host and maintain it yourself.

A typical small business site takes one to two weeks to build, and two rounds of revisions during development are included.

Questions to ask before you sign

• Does the price include design, development, mobile layout and basic SEO setup?
• Who manages hosting, SSL and the domain, and what do they cost each year?
• After launch, how do I request changes, and what is included?
• What happens to my site and content if I stop paying?
• Who will I actually be talking to — the person building the site, or an account manager?

Anyone who answers those five clearly is giving you a quote you can fairly compare. If you'd like one for your business, request a free quote — you'll hear back from the developer who would build your site.